Changes Abound
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1825b. Nora has known Emily long enough that when she starts acting out of character, she catches on and starts to wonder. - Sunshine Girls 2 series - 5TH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE, day 19b of 21.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 86th cycle. Now cycle 87!_

**_IT'S THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE OF_**_** GLEEKATHON!** \- Five years! Five years! *insert flailing* Okay, not quite, but by the end of this cycle, it will have been five years of daily stories (sometimes twice a day! ... and for seven very frightening days a couple years back, three times a day!). It will also be the end of this crazy ride. I started thinking about ending gleekathon months ago, and I wanted to finish my ongoing series before that happened. It made it so I could finish out this fifth year, and it couldn't be any better that this cycle is actually ending on October 22nd 2014, which was the day it began, in 2009... Now here we go!_

**This story is an 'Element change' for _Close &amp; Open_, a Sunshine Girls 2 series story originally posted on July 24th 2014.**

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**"Changes Abound"  
Nora (AU!Beth), Emily (OC), (Grace (OC))  
Sunshine Girls 2 series**

_**Element change: Nora realizes before Emily does.**_

It wasn't that her mind had jumped straight to that conclusion, but one thing Nora had known for sure was that Emily was acting strange. This wasn't her being annoyed at something or someone and lashing out at them, or her being sad and down and dragging her feet about, or being so happy she could barely keep herself together. No, this was something else, and it had taken Nora a day to figure out what it might be.

For one thing, as decisive people went, Emily Holt was more often than not decisive to a fault. Once she'd decided she didn't care for something, then that was how it would stay. This trait had branched out into making her a picky eater, a sore loser, but a valiant friend, too, who would back you up on your own dislikes like no one else. So the first thing which had clued Nora in that something might have been off was the morning when Emily had approached her at her locker, munching her way through a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

"You feeling okay?" Nora blinked. Emily stared at her, clueless.

"What?" she shrugged.

"You once told me if you even smelled salt and vinegar together, you would retch." Emily looked into the bag, which was clearly almost finished, and she pulled out one chip before eating it.

"I had no idea they were that good though," she declared, smiling mid chew.

Her eating habits weren't the only things turning off kilter, and really they were nothing compared to, well, her moods. Nora had known her enough to expect Emily's reactions to just about anything as being sudden and strong. But now it seemed it was all mixed up, like someone had spun a wheel, flipped it all on its head. What had finally made her figure it out though was simply enough hearing Emily cussing at her pants, which were feeling tighter than usual.

"Nora? Why are you looking at me like that?" Emily had blinked, finding her best friend wide eyed at her side. "Hello?" she waved her hand in her face.

"Em… I'm going to ask you something right now, and I know it's going to sound weird, but did you and Kelly hook up at my birthday party?" Emily abandoned her pants, which she'd been attempting to adjust.

"Okay, so that's the 'weird' you were talking about it, right? Because you weren't kidding," she frowned, but then at the continued stare, "We… might," she admitted, looking away.

"So you two are… active then."

"What is this, sex ed?" Emily went a tiny bit bug eyed. Nora stepped forward.

"Did you have your period this month?"

"Woah, hey, what's with all the questions, you're being… kind of…" Emily's face shifted; she'd been counting days. "N-No, I… I would have noticed, I… I had it, didn't I? Wait, why am I asking you, you wouldn't know, but I…" She looked down at herself, at the too tight pants. When she looked back up, she had the face of someone who'd made up her mind: she'd made up her mind that the whole suggestion was ridiculous. "I just put on a few, it happens."

"Yeah, when you've got a person growing inside you," Nora countered.

"Which I don't," Emily held up her finger. "Don't go starting rumors, those things take forever to go away."

"I don't think this one will. Look, you should take a test, just to make sure."

"There's nothing to make sure…" Emily laughed.

"I really think there is. The chips, I knew it," Nora pointed back at her.

"Do you have any?" Emily asked, suddenly interested. Nora pointed again.

"Cravings!" Emily pushed her hand away. "Fine, then take the test, just to shut me up," she smiled triumphantly. There was no world in which Emily Holt wouldn't rise to that occasion.

"If it'll shut you up," Emily consented.

"Oh, it'll do something else alright."

They'd driven to the store, where Emily had bought a bag of salt and vinegar chips, then realized Nora was not kidding about getting a pregnancy test, so she had refused to 'pee on anything' until they went to a different store. The last thing she wanted was for anyone they knew to see them and call her aunt or uncle, or worse, her mother or father… or Kelly.

Emily had been no help at all in choosing which test would be better. She spent the entire time Nora was busy comparing one to another and looking up reviews on her phone, just eating her chips and staring in silence. Her denial was good and locked in.

"Fine, if you won't believe me," Nora showed her the three boxes she still held, then marched off to the register. She knew if it turned out, by some miracle, that it was not at all what she believed, that Emily would never let her live it down, but she was absolutely convinced. Everything fit. Now they just needed to prove it. She pulled the money from her wallet, a solid investment if it could only get Emily to see this wasn't just her jumping to conclusions.

Emily refused to do this in the bathroom here, or back at her house, or Nora's house, so they had to go for the next best option: Nora's father's house. He and her stepmother were back in New York, so it was empty.

"Here," Nora handed her friend the bag, directing her toward the bathroom. "You know what to do."

"Three tests, I don't know if I have that much in me," Emily had no choice but to scamper off.

"I'll get you some water." At the bathroom door, Emily had turned back to her, and Nora could see she was asking herself: what if she really was right? "I'll be right here."

"Right… Well I am just doing this to shut you up, remember?"

"I know," Nora smiled. "And I'll happily let you rub it in my face… Not that I think I'll need to." Emily took another breath, staring into the bag, and she went into the bathroom.

THE END

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**A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
****always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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